Goriate and Uiri arrived first, rushing into the cells to see what was going on. The first thing they noticed was that the cells were being manned by ronin, not reju bushi, which was a change from the last time Uiri had visited. They demanded to see Michi. The monk was locked in a cell (not, they noted, the one with the secret tunnel) and was covered in bruises and cuts, having been beaten within an inch of his life. The three ronin present were quite open that they weren't 'questioning' him so much as 'keeping kicking him until he confessed'. Uiri ordered them to stand down and let them see to Michi's injuries - thanks to Voice of Authority, two complied, but the third didn't, and was on the verge of drawing on them. Goriate stepped forwards. The Hida - who got the initiative - chose to use Improvised Assault, spotting a pair of iron manacles linked by a heavy chain on a shelf by the cell doors. "You really shouldn't harm a shinseist monk. It's very bad luck; supposedly it causes your teeth to fall out." "What?" Having rolled enough opportunities to get a free strike with his improvised otsuchi, Goriate proceeded to....demonstrate.  "It's also bad luck, whilst we're on the subject, not to follow an Emerald Magistrate's orders. Now stay down." "Mynhnngmff..." "You'll live." The cells fairly quickly filled with other guards, and matters might have turned uglier had one of the samurai arriving to investigate the disturbance not been Reju Tsugumasa. He wasn't especially impressed with the PCs beating one of the castle guards to a pulp, but he was even less impressed with the ronin taking it on themselves to torture a prisoner without his orders, especially since they'd nearly killed the monk. Meanwhile Suiren and Horonigai tried to head off the explosion between the daimyo and his wife. This....didn't go well. Horonigai found Reju Jikai in the court, fuming, with Otomo Nobu and his henchmen, Reju Toshio and Reju Masaru doing little to calm him down. One thing she noticed was that the Reju bushi she'd normally expect to see lining the walls had, aside from Jikai's yojimbo, been replaced by Otomo ashigaru and ronin. Apparently, Nobu had prevailled on Jikai to use the Reju family bushi for the pursuit force sent into the woods - they were the best trained, and best equipped, so it made sense for them to be used for a critical task. Added to an increased number of bushi manning the castle's walls, and the ones accompanying Reju Tsugumasa to the village, and most security duties inside the castle had been turned over to Nobu's men. Horonigai tried to calm the daimyo - and failed. The Kaito has pretty wide-ranging skills, but courtier-like diplomacy isn't one of them.  Suiren and Ume intercepted Seppun Azusa en route, and tried to talk her down, but also failed. In this case it was just Suiren's courtesy dice pool flat-out not co-operating, even with assistance from Ume.  With neither party mollified in the slightest, the daimyo's wife stormed into the court and the couple essentially started a full-blown domestic, despite the impropriety of doing so in front of their court, with Suiren, Ume, Horonigai, Nobu, Toshio, Masaru and Jinzaburo all trying to find somewhere else to look.  It was at this point that Mamoru Nakama returned - Horonigai happy to find someone to talk to about other subjects. Nakama confirmed that the thing they'd driven out of the well had indeed retreated to the 'springs' - and that therefore he'd be willing to show them where it was. It was badly wounded, and not going anywhere, so (fortunately) there wasn't much of a rush. He honestly thought he could have killed it alone, but he'd promised to be cautious.  "You have a larger and more urgent problem." He said. "Whilst passing through the woods, I came across the tracks of many people - soldiers and villagers alike - marching on the castle. They will be here soon - possibly as little as an hour or two." ".....oh."  

How did this go from how definitive and reliable the Moshi's claim of being the exclusive line to the highest divinity within the Rokugan religious hierarchy and whether that is a reliably basis on which to make sweeping decisions that significantly impact an individual's life in a way that prevents them from producing heirs from very early childhood to the simple sentiment that "the Matsu are unreasonable" as though it is any secret that the Lion Clan in general is a primary driver of unnecessary strife and conflict within Rokugan that may possible eclipse any benefit they provide in supplying troops to the Imperial Legions. Somehow the Kitsu and Ikoma seeming as though they should be relatively reasonable in no way mitigates that.
All built upon the Lion Clan revolving their entire culture around conflict, yet being situated directly in the center of Rokugan where the only people to test and refine their war technique and skills against are their fellow Rokugani. Unlike the Crab Clan, there really is no constructive purpose to the Lion Clan's obsession with warfare. Potentially, should Rokugan be invaded, the Lion Clan's production of troops for the defense of Rokugan would be needed-- but that happened only once in 1000 years and the Lion Clan didn't even prove particularly useful during that one time when there was someone other than Rokugani to do war against given that the war was primarily a naval conflict.
So-- yes-- the Matsu suck. And unlike the Akodo, there aren't many things you can point to in order to mitigate just how negatively they impact Rokugan. Maybe they aren't as bad as well... virtually every family in the Scorpion Clan-- but they certainly do more harm than good.
But the thread is meant to be about whether the Moshi's claim about being the representatives of Amaterasu is remotely reliable or warranted or whether it seems like Amaterasu would have some deep grudge against all males that she would only speak to females and what effect it would have on Rokugan if there were a group of people who could directly communicate with the highest divinity and if that is at all indicative with the rest of the lore about the Centipede Clan.

The comparison between the Emperor of Rokugan or the daimyō of the Centipede to the Pope is not really a good one because the Emperor represented both secular authority as well as religious authority. The best comparison would be with the Khalifahs. In a way, IF the Centiped daimyō was declaring herself the one with the Mandate of Heaven instead of the Hantei line, you would have something similar to the sunni-shia conflicting view on succession.

In fairness, that's far from the only example.
Lady Matsu was the archetypical arrogant Lion samurai: She challenged Akodo to a duel - fair enough  - but then refused to stand by the results; I'm not advocating people being compelled to marry against their will, but she issued the challenge, agreed to the terms, then reneged on them when she lost. The whole Matsu/Kakita feud stems from Lady Matsu being outraged at being treated exactly the way she'd treated everyone she'd beaten in previous rounds. The Ki-Rin/Kitsune affair: "Invading" someone is not the same thing as "Helping" them. Matsu Tsuko is pretty much a complete re-tread of the original Lady Matsu Totally unable to accept that Akodo Arasou died because he listened to her not to his brother, meaning his death is in no small part her fault. Insisting on keeping the Matsu daimyoship despite being betrothed to marry the Akodo daimyo (which, whilst it may not seem wrong to modern sensibilities is a huge deal in Rokugani custom, especially since the Lion didn't allow the same freedoms to the Unicorn clan champion). Killing the 'Warriors of the Boar' ronin out of hand for abusing 'Lion' peasants (fair enough, to be honest) and then expecting Kuwanan to find out who was behind it after butchering the one person who actually represented a useful lead before questioning them. Diverting Arasou's funeral cortege to the battlefront to indulge her desire for revenge then simultaneously arguing Arasou's spirit 'wasn't at peace' when she hadn't completed the funerary traditions.  Launching a coup against the Clan Champion on the grounds of a justification which (given that everyone knew she was the best duellist present - she was Topaz Champion in her Gempukku year) boiled down to nothing more than "I say I'm champion now and if anyone disagrees, I'll kill them. Honourably, of course."

It all began in an idly South American winter in 2001...
Well, I may not have been silent about that, but I have always found the Lion Clan the most boring and irritating clan, except for the Kitsu family and the Matsu most of all. I will admit that having the Kakita as my favorite family certainly helped cement this bias.

Probably just coming to grips with the effects of the short visit Matsu Tsuko made to Kyuden Kakita, and Daidoji Uji's time to leave message. 

I feel there is some accumulated irritation being let slip there.

I admit I had never thought that way, and yes, you are right, that is a reasonable explanation.
For a militaristic family, it's kind of hard to justify a male daimyõ if they can't ever be part of the vanguard.

the Utaku's biases are driven not by their human culture, but the Utaku steeds. Remember that Utaku steeds are a lot closer in nature to Tolkein's Maeress, Donaldson's Ranyhyn or Weber's Coursers than they are to mundane 'horses'.
It is an observed rule in-setting, and appears to be a universal one, that Utaku steeds will for some reason not accept a male rider.  Since the Shiotome cavalry are basically 'the point' of the Utaku family, you therefore get a natural female bias in positions of authority (though, unlike the Moshi, not in overall demographics).
 
 
The Matsu, by comparison, are just arrogant tools, and have been at pretty much every defining moment of their family history.

Yes, I liked this solution to explain why the Moshi are “matriarchal” in a setting where there’s no overall difference in treatment between male and female (compared to first edition, for instance). Although that still doesn’t explain the Utaku and possibly the Matsu.

Then you may or may not be interested to hear that the lady who did that project had the University of Michigan buy her entire helmet testing apparatus, but also gave her a full ride scholarship to include room and board for the entire 4 year course.  They were so impressed that they wanted her to continue her experiments, and this was before the revelations about football and head trauma trends.  Turns out that there is only one independent helmet testing facility and most of the manufacturers treat the data as proprietary information.  So your athlete-gamer may want to keep tabs on the research coming out of Michigan.

Love that analogy.

Incidentally, that reminds me of a project my father reviewed at the ISEF international science fair several years ago.  The young researcher was experimenting with different materials for helmets, particularly hockey helmets.  One of the most promising used a bladder and orifice through which a non-Newtonian fluid passed through when the helmet was hit, allowing it to be used multiple times.  Now imagine Goriate wearing such a combat helmet.

Since (like, I suspect, a lot of RPG players with access to the internet), Goriate's player and I are big fans of Journeyquest, the exchange "Have you taken many blows to the head?" "Hundreds!" has become pretty standard at our gaming table, especially given that he is (a) a bouncer and (b) plays in our county American Football team as a defensive lineman*.
 
* Obviously, Hida Goriate is not in any way a bit of a self-portrait.  

The plot didn’t so much thicken as it became a non-newtonian liquid 😂

I feel that L5R 5th lacks a Monster Manual. Sure, the play-style isn't dungeon-crawling like in other systems, but I always liked having a manual with an interesting creature or two to inspire a short sidequest. Ravenloft excelled at that, with creatures that were both interesting and complex enough to keep a group occupied for an evening.
Especially Emerald Empires let me down in this regard, with over a dozen creatures spelled out in all details, but all of them simple human NPCs. I can easily improvise a human NPC, something more uncommon would have been much more useful. Shadowlands offered a number of good creatures, but of course, most are confined to the Shadowlands.
So I thought we could design and share some here, as inspiration and help for other gamemasters.
I'll start it off with a few creatures, inspired from different sources and ideas (no warrantry that that is how the official creature would look, or that it is true to ancient folk traditions).
Since printing out web pages is a headache, I also compiled all my monster into a single PDF document, with some GM remarks and adventure ideas each. I'll update the PDF whenever I design a new one. Of course, I will also post them down-thread:
Strange Creatures of Rokugan.pdf
HERE THERE BE MONSTERS:
- the undead ninjas called Akikage

- The Con-Tinh, a beautiful princess alone in the woods, which somehow does not behave like a princess at all.

- the Head Hunter, the most horrifying moster of the old D&D Ravenloft Denizens of Darkness:

- the terrible Hopping Vampire, mainstay of Hongkong Wuxia cinema

- the Jinmenju, or Death-Head Tree:

- the Jorōgumo, a spider-woman that enchants its victims (details inspired by the Rising Sun boardgame creature)

Details on the Jorogumo:
The Jorōgumo doesn't just go around charming anyone and then ask them to kill their family.
It will choose a solitary person, a woodcutter or boy collecting firewood. It will charm him from hiding, reavealing herself afterwards, and the person sees an otherworldly beauty that tells him she is a messanger fromn the Fortunes or the Kami, sent to gather a few humans to save from the imminent catastrophe. She will show him a vision of the catastrophe (with False Realm of the Fox Spirits), as well as a vision of the near-paradise that awaits him and his family - if they prove themselves worthy of the new world. To trest that, she will have to ask him to do a few things, that will surely hurt her more than him, but are necessary to prove his devotion to the Fortunes, the Kami, and her.
The first few things she asks for a small transgressions, without logic or rhyme - steal a broom or a comb from that woman, tell everybody that that woman is an evil witch... and of course do not talk about me. Only later become the demands worse, all with the intention of getting the family to go into the woods, alone or in groups of two, into the protected paradise. What awaits them, of course, is a spider cocoon and an egg, to feed the next generation of Jorōgumo.
Even if the PCs quickly find out that the affected is charmed by a creature, he only knows that she is a beautiful woman, and where he saw her in the woods. Actually finding her and getting her to stand and fight is not easy for a creature that can run up trees.
In battle, if the charmed person is there, she will order him (not an action) to kill her attackers. If he does not do that on his turn, it will cause him 3 Strife for defying his ninjo. The jorogumo will try to avoid attacking him, but attack others in Fire stance und use Opportunities to cause him 2 Strife, driving him towards unmasking.
It is a crafty and smart opponent that will use its abilities to greatest effect: sitting on a ceiling, cliff or tree and pulling foes up, only to drop them, pushing foes into traps, over edges or into damaging terrain, covering pitfalls with False Realm of the Fox Spirits, turning invisible with Cloak of Night and attacking from hiding... A Jorogumo should not be underestimated.
- the water yokai Kappa

- the Komainu, or Lion Dog, guarding shrines (and chinese restaurents). Also a Rising Sun boardgame monster.

Komainu adventure idea: the PCs could be called to a local shrine because the resident kami seems to be unhappy, throwing stuff around every now and then.
Investigating, the PCs might find out that a group of burglers tried to rob the shrine a few weeks back, but were chased off when the komainu activated (their claw marks can still be seen near the front steps). Unnoticed, the spirit of a recently deceased local woman entered the shrine at the same time, with the wards down, and became trapped inside when the Komainu returned. It is her spirit that has caused the recent commotion.
The PCs will have to activate the Komainu long enough for her to leave without destroying them, as they are parts of the shrine. Aand, for bonus points, find out what keeps the spirit in this world, and solve that problem.
- The Living Blade, a deadly remnant of a bloodthirsty killer:

- the Long dragon, creature of legend and myth. Not really a PC adversary, but any Far-Eastern RPG should have it available.

- a transfer from KanThaiPan, the far-eastern setting of Germany's oldest RPG "Midgard": The Metal-Eating Rabbit PeiTju.

- The fearsome Tengu Swordmaster. Many young samurai dream of seeking one out in his mountaintop refuge and becoming his pupil, but those that actually do often come to regret the decision.

- The venerable Terracotta Soldier:

- the Ubume, a sad woman only wanting to share her burden

- The White-Haired Witch, another Hongkong Cinema mainstay:

The plot didn’t so much thicken as it became a non-newtonian liquid 😂

Indeed. I seem to recall hearing an audible 'clang' noise.

The plot didn’t so much thicken as it became a non-newtonian liquid 😂

A cute new entry for my Creature Collection: The Pipe Fox or Kuda-Gitsune, a sweet animal from Chikusho-do that can bond with humans and help them with their magical powers, but has a Sorcerer's-Apprentice-like drawback.

As I pointed out to you in the other thread: 
While I believe the directions were luck from Wick & co, I believe our current authors were better informed and referring to folklore, not implying a new gaeway to Jigoku.

Probably not. Facing the oni Atsuko, maybe, but being surrounded by a Shadowlands army unexpectedly is a different matter when you're not fighting from something like the Kaiu wall. Having faced her in the RPG, Lady Atsuko is dangerous, and I doubt anyone in the audience room was likely to survive, but she's not capable of taking on the entire Yogo family military singlehanded: the castle wouldn't have fallen to just her and a few odd Shinomen gribblies
Part of the reason the Scorpion failed is because of the surprise appearance of the army. Assuming this snuck into Rokugan via the captured watchtower, this is the Crab's fault.
Of course, the Crab had to investigate on a shoestring - bringing in Mantis mercenaries - because they're short of resources and stretched thin. This, to them, is the fault of the Imperial Chancellor - a Crane.
Who was put in that position in no small part by the Imperial Advisor  - a Scorpion.
What goes around comes around.

So, this is something I had promised @Magnus Grendel on another topic about fleshing out the fast rules we used for mass combat. So here we go:
Armies
Every army is composed of five Rings, Composure and Stamina, just like a character and Tactics and Command. The difference being, that if the commander of an army has a better attribute than the army, then the commander's attribute is used. Skills are always the skills of the commander, though.
Peasant Levy: basically just a bunch of peasants with no formal training and using makeshift weapons and farming tools. Air 1, Earth 2, Fire 2, Water 1, Void 1. Stamina 8, Composure 6. Command 1. Ashigaru Army: the backbone of every Rokugani army, an Ashigaru army is composed mainly of drafted and trained peasants and a few Samurai officers. Air 2, Earth 2, Fire 2, Water 2, Void 1. Stamina 8, Composure 8. Command 2, Tactics 2. Rōnin Army: a mercenary unit hired by the Great Clan, mostly looked down by Great Clan Samurai, they can turn the tide of a battle. Air 1, Earth 3, Fire 3, Water 1, Void 3. Stamina 12, Composure 8. Command 3, Tactics 3.  Samurai Army: an army composed of only samurai, possibly being the most elite unit on a campaign. Air 2, Earth 3, Fire 3, Water 3, Void 2. Stamina 12, Composure 12. Command 3, Tactics 3. The idea of the whole thing is to Compromise or Incapacitate the enemy's army (in one, you completely rout them, on the other, they are completely destroyed). Every day of combat gives you two rolls and if, at the end of the day, any of the armies are not cut off from supply lines, they can reduce their fatigue and strife to half.
You use the same rolls for Mass Combat but instead of inflicting/recovering attrition and panic, you inflict/recover fatigue and strife and they are compared to the Stamina and Composure of the unit.
It works way faster, with a not so shabby commander, you can defeat most units in a day of combat with 3 rolls (one for initiative, two for two assaults), instead of rolling infinitely trying to reach 30+ something for panic or attrition.

If there are individuals that THE primary deity of the entire setting indisputably and verifiably communicates with and through, then what exactly is the point of having an Emperor? No one descended from the son of the Sun is going to have the divine wisdom, knowledge and foresight of an eternal goddess who oversees all. If it were an actual thing that was absolutely true and no one in Rokugan could dispute, then everyone would have long ago agreed to depose the emperor in favor of whatever vessel the mother of all living things was choosing communicate through and affect change in Rokugan.
And why have they not already destroyed the Shadowlands? Amaterasu would undoubtedly have the power to seal the pit of Jigoku and/or fix Fu Leng were she to have any power to affect anything within ningendo at all.
That indicates "hearing the voice of Amaterasu" means absolutely nothing beyond the empty, totally questionable claims of a splinter group from the Phoenix lands that live in a tiny little peninsula and come across as borderline mad to everyone else beyond their insular little group. It bears all the weight of any other cult leader claiming that the voices in their head are those of god.
Maybe their own little wacky clan thinks it is the voice of Amaterasu-- but very obviously no one else in the empire believes them. Which means also there is plenty of reason to disbelieve them.

Yogo Jiro was sent off with either the Black Scroll or Kunshu-- and either one of them would explain vengeful ghosts coming for him like... immediately. One would usually expect a haunting from that sort of thing for years before they come to enact lethal vengeance.
He was also sent off with evidence of his own worst wrong-doing-- ironically because the Soshi who sent him off with the letters probably presumed that he was escaping with some important messages from the Yogo Daimyo or maybe even important magical scrolls.
Well-- whichever one he didn't escape with are sure to be in the hands of the Shadowlands now... while I guess whichever samurai he was riding with get the other.
 
To be honest, I don't really disagree with Yogo Junzo's choice not to evacuate things. They were rather confident that the approaching shadowlands entity was of no serious concern-- that they would be able to more than handle it easily. Meanwhile, if they had sent off the most important artifacts in some random direction then they would be far less safe out there in the wild than they would be in the palace. In fact-- given that they were attacked from all directions, there is every reason to think that having evacuated the artifacts like that just would have sent them into the hands of the enemy all that much quicker.